The International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands, also known as "The World Court" is made up of 15 permanent judges and a further two nominated by the parties involved.
It has no enforcement powers, although its decisions traditionally carry some diplomatic weight.
In 1948 the court ordered Albanian compensation for two British warships destroyed by mines in Corfu Channel.
The court heard mutual Serbian and Bosnian accusations, and ordered both to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing.
The court resolved border disputes between Chad and Libya, and Honduras and El Salvador.
The court overruled a 1960 U.N. resolution refuting South African control over Namibia, and reversed itself in 1967.
Libya asked the court to make Britain and the U.S. hand over evidence incriminating Libya in airliner bombings over Scotland and Niger.
It rejected Libya's requested injunction against Britain and the U.S. "taking any action against Libya calculated to coerce or compel Libya to surrender the accused individuals to any jurisdiction outside of Libya", and endorsed U.N. sanctions against Libya.
The court heard a case by British Petroleum against Iran's nationalization of all foreign oil interests in 1951.
In 1989 Iran asked the court to declare unlawful the 1988 U.S. shoot-down of Iran Air 655 and make the U.S. compensate Iran directly, not individual Iranians.
In 1979, the court ordered Iran to release the American hostages in Tehran.
Nicaragua asked the court to rule U.S. aid to the Contras illegal.
The court ruled illegal the U.S. mining of Nicaraguan harbors.
